"I said, 'Well, I'm from Arkansas. I'm from Fayetteville. Going to the university has been my dream. My dad played here,' blah, blah, blah."

Cue the video.

"They had some tapes of him, along with a lot of the greats in Arkansas history," Ronnie said, "so I got to see him and appreciate the skills he had and what he brought to the table.

"I kind of recognized, 'OK, that's where I get some of that.'"

It's all making sense now.

"We've both got quick hands," said Ronnie, an athletic swingman who plays what is deemed to be Doug Christie-like defense with hints of Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels in his game. "I mean, he anticipates passes like I (do) to get steals and go down there and finish."

But are they carbon copies?

Ronnie's not so sure.

"His jump shot is a little different than mine, because he shot under ball, and he jumped a little bit higher, because he used to high jump in high school," the kid said of his old man. "I'm a little bit taller (about 6-foot-6 barefoot vs. 6-4), I'm a little bigger, I can play a few different positions.

"So our games are really not that similar."

Their resolve, however, seems to be.

· · · · ·

Flash forward to the end of Ronnie's third year at Arkansas, 2006.

He's averaged 18.4 points per game as a junior. He may not have taken them to the Final Four like Pop and friends, but the revived Razorbacks are back in the NCAA tourney for the first time since 2001.

Hope throughout the Land of Opportunity is that Brewer will return for his senior season and carry the Hawgs deep into the dance.

Ron Brewer, however, has other ideas — chiefly, that Ronnie is NBA-ready.

"I told him, 'Look, right now, you've got to think about what's best for Ronnie.' ... I said, 'You've got the basketball part. They've turned you into a young man,'" Ron said. "I said, 'The only thing that matters is we didn't get our degree yet. Are you gonna get your degree?' I went, 'Yeah, he's gonna get his degree — because on top of our mantle is everybody's degree but his.'"

Ronnie felt the same. It just took him much longer to come to the realization. He, go figure, took forever before formally announcing he'd definitely make himself draft-eligible.

"I said, 'Ronnie, we've got to put the information out to the NBA people, because Sunday's the deadline date. ... We've got to have a press conference, so you can say one way or the other. Either you're gonna stay, or you're gonna go,'" Ron said. "So we had a press conference — Thursday."